"History’s Greatest Gay General" Topic

"Frederick the Great is one of history's most famous and adept military commanders. He's not Napoleon, but pretty damn close.

The 18th-century Prussian king is credited with transforming a backwater patchwork of Baltic lands into a modern state—all while fending off armies four times the size of his own. He was an infamous disciplinarian, a ruthless commander and a military genius.

He was the symbol of Prussian masculinity and militarism, and he was also most likely gay…."
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Amicalement
Armand

They all seemed pretty happy to me, once it came to battle.

Dan
PS. Would do a search for you, my friend, but I don't want a ton of advertisements to pop up from that browser history. So you are in your own. :)

I think it was more common than one would think, that's why I think for example many British officiers married late in life they needed to to produce heirs so at some point they needed to"do the right thing"

Voltaire accused Fritz of ing his help. Frederick accused Voltaire of stealing the silverware. Why exactly is only Voltaire's claim taken seriously? Of the two, which would you regard as more trustworthy?

I know this is a difficult concept for the 21st Century mind to grasp, but not everyone has much of a sex life, and some people have none at all. The absence of documented sexual activity does not necessarily mean someone is engaged in clandestine sexual activity.

And, this is TMP. Is someone seriously thinking of a model of this? Back to uniforms and tactics, perhaps?

I havd read a lot, whole lot of Frederick the Great and am not convinced he was gay. Pretty sure his brother was. At worst he was non sexual ( after his early years)and totally delves into his work, and flute.

Glad to see this was stifled. Gay or straight should not even enter into a discussion of generalship. The only thing that makes a general great is his track record. Personally I don't consider Frederick to be great. The record of his battles is that he had real trouble beating his opponents. The Austrians managed to stay in the field. The Russians beat the Prussians as much as the Prussians beat them. He did have great generals who won battles for him. He did have a huge bankroll thanks to Britain or he would have had to sue for peace well before the historical end of the Seven Years War. He lost his capitol for God's sake. None of these factors describe a great general.

He has never impressed me much happy or sad.

Frederick the Great is no so much great for his battlefield military prowess (though he did have his moments), as for making Prussia, during his reign, the preeminent military power in central Europe until Napoleon came along, and of course after Napoleon went – as two world wars went on to prove.

Given that achievement, gay or straight is a rather mute point.

And quite the musician too.

I forget his name, but a British general* penned a biography of Alexander the Great.
He tackled the subject of Alexander's sexuality head on.
His basic point was that because Alex was Great, he couldn't possibly have been gay.
Errrr…. OK. I guess.
That seems a stretch.

* Was It Tarn?

If he was gay, he did his duty to Macedonia and produced an heir. Then he went and died too soon, so fat lot of good it did.

Let's not leave out Julius Caesar. His men even sang about his fling with the King of Bythinia.

But I guess both he and Alex came down more on the B than the G. Like Prince Oberyn Martell.

Well, I take Freddie's claim seriously that Vollie stole the silver!

Though my favorite gay general is Von Steuben.

Eureka has a nice set of figures with Fred debating Voltaire. On second thought, maybe he's accusing him of stealing the silverware.
Or maybe he was set up by some Prussian who thought that Fred should have had a genuine Prussian philosopher at Sans Souci, rather than some French fop.
I haven't painted my set yet. Now I feel inspired!

Prussian philosopher….
Rather have a French one.
My German instructor at college accused me of having a "Prussian accent". I forgot what that meant, but it wasn't a compliment.

Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, it seemed fairly clear years ago, well before Tim Blanning's biography pretty much put the seal on the deal – but so what?
Surely a non-issue.

By the way, is this a Poll Suggestions thread?

Does it need to be?

Go ahead, Winston. Start one. :)

Dan

I just hit [!] and asked Dear Editor to make it one.

Yes… please!! (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I take Frederick at his own word: that he won because he had the last thaler in his pocket. His greatest victory was in seizing Silesia early and holding it over the course of three wars against what amounted to most of the rest of Europe at any point in time. The result was that the Kingdom of Prussia became a first rank European power. Like anyone who fought so many wars and battles, his record is mixed. Frederick himself certainly recognized that open battle was risky and the last alternative for achieving one's ends. He had some great victories, as well as some defeats attributable largely to his own negligence or misjudgment. And that's not even getting into the role his subordinates played (and Frederick always blamed them for his defeats).

Does success on the mattress equal success on the battlefield? (or Vice-versa?)

Frederic, Steuben, Gordon, Kitchner and many others are famous for their deeds on the world stage. NOT their personal proclivities.

RIP.

Winston, you might be thinking of J.F.C. Fuller's Generalship of Alexander the Great. W.W. Tarn was British classicist but not, to my knowledge, an officer in the army (although I recall some work for British intelligence during the First World War, but I don't think he left Britain).

Takeda Shingen first, but Hitler was a close second :p

Winston: "I just hit [!] and asked Dear Editor to make it one."

What? That's all you needed to do? You don't have to write and post your own? Wow.

Dan
PS. Wait. That only covers "G". Are you going to have him start a separate one for the rest of the alphabet soup? And how about one for straight? :)

As for the samurai, I wonder how much literary license was taken by James Clavell when he described the "Ladies of the Willow" and their other "helpers" in his novel Shogun.

Dan

Sadly, most of my books are in storage at the moment, but I'm pretty sure that Christopher Duffy addressed this in his book "Frederick the Great: A Military Life".

In it, he pointed out that early in his career, Frederick was sent to Dresden where he had a dalliance with a Saxon Princess (or Duchess, pretty sure it was some sort of '-ess') which he suggested required a 'surgically drastic' cure…

I'm pretty sure that in an appendix he also made reference to the official autopsy which confirmed the mutilation.

Duffy went on to suggest that this was an underlying cause of Freddys loathing of anything Saxon, which seems fair enough to me.

What I found fascinating was that apparently the autopsy was freely available, so it isn't like people at the time weren't curious about the matter as well…

Langobard

She was a Saxon "Dauphiness". See page 77:

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Also:

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Dan

"I know this is a difficult concept for the 21st Century mind to grasp, but not everyone has much of a sex life, and some people have none at all. The absence of documented sexual activity does not necessarily mean someone is engaged in clandestine sexual activity."

Well said, sir, well said.

I once saw a modern art painting of Napoleon in a museum which had the title of something like "History's greatest homosexual". Pretty soon we will be reading that George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Dwight Eisenhower were gay. History is always being rewritten to serve some people's agendas.

Poll option:

* Yes, and Voltaire did steal the silverware.

Dan,

Many thanks!

I also have an idea that there was a severe to hysterical social phobia of venereal disease in the 17th – 18th centuries (and probably longer). If correct, that would also influence how Freddy wanted to be seen, which, from my perspective is basically the sexless servant of the state (and great general) rather than anything else.

Not that any of this is really any of our business.

Colin

USAFPilot: "Pretty soon we will be reading that George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Dwight Eisenhower were gay. History is always being rewritten to serve some people's agendas."

Indeed! Truth is becoming less and less relevant, specially now when so many in our society are too lazy to read more than just a meme or a tweet.

At least past generations of voters had some sort of an excuse if they happened to be illiterate.

Dan
PS. What's the saying … that to the man with a hammer everything suddenly looks like a nail? That's what's happening with old Soviet posters and Sino-Soviet Marxist solidarity posters today, used to advance a different agenda today, or to imply that those regimes were promoting tolerance of those lifestyles.
link

A bit … ah … Disturbing … at least to me … I hope I don't upset anyone saying that.

I am an advocate of what 2[or more] consenting adults do in private is no business of mine. Or of interest to me …

Thia place gets farther away from gaming every day.

Agree with princeman. I don't care about Frederick's sexuality, only his performance as a general and statesman.

Amen!

Dan

Try this link: link

I thought the meaning of Gay was happy.

Lol. Me too!

Dan

What a boring discussion, so typical of the patriarchy. Can't we expand it to include the best lesbian general?

I vote for Xena. She led the Amazons to crushing victories over the Greeks and Romans and was undefeated until she fell off her horse.

@ OP

Frederick the Great is too easy; he didnt play that flute all day for nothing…

It's a well established revisionist fact that just about every general who ever fought a war was gay.

My German instructor at college accused me of having a "Prussian accent". I forgot what that meant, but it wasn't a compliment.

Usually it would be described as Berlin Accent. Berliners are stereotypically big-mouthed, brash and cocky. The stereotypical Prussian army accent was to a large extent coloured by Berlinerisch, partly because the Prussian influence on the German mititary.

As its home is a North German city, the dialect is somewhat coloured by a Low German substratum, and thus typical elements like "ick(e)" for "ich" ("I") are originally Plattdeutsch, while others are specific Berlin variants of same, such as "det" for the neutrum of the definite article ("dat" in Low German, "das" in High German).

Typical features of Berlinerisch include:

The letter 'G' is often substituted by 'J' (consonantic "Y" in English), as in "jut, jut" (well,well) or "Orje" (a diminutive form of "Georg").

The diphthong "au" can become a long "o", as in "ooch" for High German "auch,"note and "Oogen" (pronounced with a velar fricative sound like the (Modern) Greek gamma) for "Augen"note .

A short "I" will often be given a darker pronunciation close to a short "Ü", as in "nüscht" for "nichts"note and "Kürche" for "Kirche"note .

Like other North Germans, Berliners have a tendency to mix up the dative and accusative case.

Maybe they weren't gay … just some really happy fellas and gals !

I guess Epaminondas and Pammenes should be added to the list? link

My German instructor at college accused me of having a "Prussian accent". I forgot what that meant, but it wasn't a compliment.

Usually it would be described as Berlin Accent. Berliners are stereotypically big-mouthed, brash and cocky. The stereotypical Prussian army accent was to a large extent coloured by Berlinerisch, partly because the Prussian influence on the German mititary.

As its home is a North German city, the dialect is somewhat coloured by a Low German substratum, and thus typical elements like "ick(e)" for "ich" ("I") are originally Plattdeutsch, while others are specific Berlin variants of same, such as "det" for the neutrum of the definite article ("dat" in Low German, "das" in High German).

Typical features of Berlinerisch include:

The letter 'G' is often substituted by 'J' (consonantic "Y" in English), as in "jut, jut" (well,well) or "Orje" (a diminutive form of "Georg").

The diphthong "au" can become a long "o", as in "ooch" for High German "auch,"note and "Oogen" (pronounced with a velar fricative sound like the (Modern) Greek gamma) for "Augen"note .

A short "I" will often be given a darker pronunciation close to a short "Ü", as in "nüscht" for "nichts"note and "Kürche" for "Kirche"note .

Like other North Germans, Berliners have a tendency to mix up the dative and accusative case.

all is klar!

I understand the appropriately named von Steuben was known for his predilection for "comforting" young men.

He did train the Continental Army to become a serious fighting force which may give him seat at the table of history's greatest alternative lifestyle generals.

Isn't Tom Cruise a general in Sea Org?